GOP governors undermine Obama agenda in states

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, right, and Iowa Gov. Terry Brandstad take part in the Health and Human Services Committee meeting at the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011.

Cliff Owen, Associated Press

Summary

Their ranks swollen after the last election, Republican governors from Florida to Alaska are undermining President Barack Obama's agenda at every turn ahead of the Democrat's 2012 re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON — Their ranks swollen after the last election, Republican governors from Florida to Alaska are undermining President Barack Obama's agenda at every turn ahead of the Democrat's 2012 re-election campaign.

Some are rejecting federal money for high-speed rail. Many are fighting the president's health care law. And several are going after the Democratic Party's bedrock constituency, pushing laws that would weaken the power of unions.

Not that any Republican governor will acknowledge that this is politics at play — even if it is.

"Republican governors are doing what they said they would as candidates," insisted Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who led the GOP's campaign efforts last fall and may seek the party's presidential nomination. "All this goes back to our commitment in the last election that we're going to get control of spending for the sake of the taxpayers."

"It's not a conspiracy. It's not that we're doing this for a political reason to go after the president," added first term Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. "We have fundamental disagreements. We have different perspectives."

But left unsaid in interviews with governors attending this weekend's National Governors Association meeting was this: Republicans, particularly in places with many electoral votes, like the Midwest, are fully aware that stymieing Obama's plans in the states could weaken him just as he tries to make the case to the country that he should get a second term.

One Republican governor has gone so far as to privately liken GOP governors' efforts to providing "oversight of the Obama administration."

"They are so obsessed with the short-term political game of keeping the president from succeeding that they've taken their eyes off of the big goal ... which is creating jobs and moving our states and country out of this recession," said Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

Could the GOP effort to undercut Obama backfire?

"Yes. I think it already has," said Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat. "Americans aren't anxious to refight the fights of the last two years. They want to move on."

The president's conflicts with GOP governors date to his first years in office. Many Republican governors opposed Obama's economic stimulus plan. Some also objected to his Gulf Coast oil-drilling moratorium.

After big GOP gains in November, Obama is running into even more roadblocks.

GOP governors now control most of the 26 states that have sued to stop Obama's health care overhaul, his signature domestic accomplishment. They say it would cost their states too much money. Last month in Florida, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled the law was unconstitutional.

Some GOP-led states — such as Alaska, where Republican Sean Parnell is governor — have refused to implement the law in light of that ruling. But the Justice Department wants the judge to order the states to follow the law pending an appeal.

"We cannot sustain it. We can't afford it," said Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, who also has assailed Environmental Protection Agency efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. "We believe that the federal government just needs to get out of the way and let us run the states."

Obama's high-speed rail plan has run into trouble, too. Democrats say the projects — mostly funded by the federal government — would create jobs; Republicans worry about cost overruns and the long-term expense.

Popular Comments

It's a new day
in America and time to clean house on all spending....the govt takes in so much
freaking money...its just sick! Those who think they need more are fools and
slaves unti
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6:13 p.m. Feb. 27, 2011

Top comment

B

Logan, UT

Actually, the voters all across the country are undermining Obama's
agenda...lest you forget we ARE a republic. This is exactly what we elected
them to do. Obama's agenda was ill-conceived and unsustainable from the start.
He obviously has no
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7:15 p.m. Feb. 27, 2011

Top comment

Rock Of The Marne

Phoenix, AZ

In an ideal world we would get rid of political parties all together. To belong
to one entails owning a bag full of ideology and subsequent actions you may not
fully believe in. I know the best thing I did for my political sanity was to
become an
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